While entered in a self-inflicted, 11-month race to finish the beginning of a process that will end in a viable and working wastewater treatment system, the City of Hattiesburg may find itself making critical decisions based on a moving target.

Operating under a modified consent order that carries the heft of the federal legal system behind it, the city faces a terse timeline to design, construct and open a treatment facility that will meet allowable pollutant limits.

However, the engineering firm hired by the city in October to help shape what type of treatment solution it will employ reported last week that current pollutant permit limits that would shape the design of the new treatment system very could well could become even more stringent within a few years of its completion.

Nathan Husman, engineer manager for Neel-Schaffer Inc., addressed Mayor Johnny DuPree and city councilmen last week in what will become a monthly visit during the initial testing, screening and planning phase of the project.

Husman said while nothing had been confirmed regarding tighter regulations or when they could take effect, he said the possibility is something the council needed to take into consideration.

"In order to prepare for that, you need to understand the impact it could have on the city's project," he said. "We have had several discussions with (the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality) on that very subject, and they understand that not only Hattiesburg but other communities in Mississippi are being asked to gaze into a very foggy crystal ball to make these decisions."

Husman said Neel-Schafer had written MDEQ, asking it to run models for not only the next five years, but for decades down the road on various requirements.

"In our discussions, and they didn't argue with us, is that if we build this plant to a 2-ammonia limit, and it opens up in 2017-2018, but in 2020, they come down with much higher limits, then the city just wasted their investment," he said. "They just wasted an opportunity to do it right the first time, and then they'll have to come back and fix it."

The city has been seeking a system since being cited for discharging unacceptable levels of various pollutants into the Leaf and Bouie rivers from its south lagoon treatment plant.

In January, the city had signed a contract with Hattiesburg-based Groundworx, LLC, which would have created a ground-based dispersal system that would have removed the city's discharge from the rivers.

But a water and sewer rate hike that would have covered the $141 million cost to design, construct and operate the system was deemed too heavy a burden to place on residents and was vetoed by DuPree.

Groundworx sued the city for breach of contract and the two currently are negotiating a date for a court-required mediation session.

Hattiesburg received a reprieve, when a federal consent order was modified, extending a trio of "delivery" dates.

The city must have a design submitted for the new system by Sept. 1, have it under construction by May 1, 2016, and operational by Sept. 1, 2018.

CLOSE

Councilman Bradley talks about possible changes in required purification levels of wastewater and how those could affect the city's plans for a new treatment system.
Tim Doherty/Hattiesburg American

Council President Kim Bradley said one of the key factors in choosing Groundworx was that it would need no modification if discharge permit limits were tightened.

"It was something that if the target was moving, it wouldn't matter because we already would have a plan that was in place, that was funded, that was operational," he said. "Obviously, when things crashed, my thought on the nutrient criteria was, 'Well, we'll build to what fits the mold today, what meets the limits, and then future governments, 15 years, 20 years down the road, if they need more widgets or gadgets on the rear end, then they can deal with it then.

"But, if this come true, what we've heard (about tighter restrictions by the new decade), it really changes the thought process of where we're going to go."

Ward 2 Councilwoman Deborah Delgado, who had opposed land-based dispersal from the beginning as too expensive, said a mechanical system that would strain the wastewater at higher than the current regulations might be the best way to proceed.

"I think we do have to look at it, and I think we should," she said. "I think we should have the capacity to expand without it breaking the budget going forward. I just think we need to be prepared."

The city also has other factors working in its favor that will play into the eventual selection of the treatment system.

An evaporator that will pretreat the highly-toxic effluent sent to the lagoons from USA Yeast has undergone preliminary testing and could be operating by the end of the year.

"If we can have an effect from the evaporator and quit putting that toxic stuff in there, it's going to be better," Bradley said.

Husman said Neel-Schaffer will have conversations with MDEQ about reducing the scope of the city's wastewater treatment system from 20 million gallons a day to as much as 15 million gallons a day.

CLOSE

Mayor DuPree talks about the possible impact that potentially stricter purification levels for wastewater may have on city's plans for a new system.
Tim Doherty/Hattiesburg American

DuPree, who also has been a proponent of a mechanical treatment solution, said a city-wide inspection and long-term repair or replacement of water and sewer lines will mitigate the flow of ground and surface water that finds its way into the lines and is carried to the lagoons.

"You've got water and sewer lines cross connecting and flowing into each other," DuPree said. "We have lines with holes in them that have rainwater, groundwater infiltrating those sewer lines, so we're actually treating fresh water.

"So, if you back that off, who knows how many gallons that is per day, so we're hoping that we can back down from 20 million gallons a day to 15 million gallons a day, and maybe less than that, as we get more efficient by repairing sewer lines. All of those things play into the design."